


Descendants

by Odderancy (dreamcatchers_and_chocolate)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Air Nomad Genocide (Avatar), Air Nomads (Avatar), Ficlet, Gen, Post-Canon, surviving air nomads, very short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25590838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamcatchers_and_chocolate/pseuds/Odderancy
Summary: The last airbender, they say.But no one can get them all. There will always be survivors, even if they might not know it.(Basically, it doesn't make sense to me that Sozin managed to completely eradicate every air nomad on the planet, except for Aang)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 104





	Descendants

A fire crackled softly in the hearth when Aang stepped inside the small Earth Kingdom house, warmth washing over him as he placed his glider next to the door. There was a small _thock_ as it met with the shelf full of mugs and plates next to the entrance. As on cue, a loud thundercrack came from outside, and the sound of rain was deafening. His clothes were dry, though; he’d gotten rid of the water before he stepped inside. The storm had surprised him, but by pure luck he’d found a cottage in the middle of the forest, and the father of the house had invited him to stay.

Two young girls sat by the fire, playing with a doll. Hardly older than five. Their skin was light, unusually so for this part of the Earth Kingdom. An elderly, grey-haired woman sat in a chair, watching them with a smile on her face, and her skin was the same.

“Everyone,” Liwei, the father of the house, said. “Meet the Avatar. He’ll be staying with us tonight to avoid the storm.”

Aang smiled, raising a hand in a small wave as everyone turned to stare at him. The children’s grey eyes were wide as they stared openly.

The old woman narrowed her eyes, but then smiled. “Welcome, Avatar.” Her voice was croaky, and she cleared her throat immediately after she had spoken.

“Just call me Aang.” He bowed. “Thank you for letting me stay.”

“Of course, Ava- Aang.” Liwei ran his fingers through his dark brown hair, which made cold water droplets fall onto them both. He was drenched. “My wife might not be home tonight, because of the storm. She will be terribly upset she missed you.”

Smiling apologetically, Aang stepped toward the fire. “King Bumi waits for me, so I’m afraid I can’t stay.”

“Of course.”

The little girls giggled as he approached, and one of them held out their toy for him – a handsewn doll from red fabric. Aang smiled, sitting down with them, cross-legged, as he took it before throwing into the air. With a few well-thrown wind puffs, it danced in the air, and the girls clapped their hands in delight.

“Jia can do that!” one of them chirped, pointing at her sister. The sister – Jia – nodded solemnly.

“Do what?” He tiled his head, handing the doll back. Interested in seeing what she would do. “Can you show me?”

Jia grinned, and then threw the doll into the air just like he had done. And then… Aang gasped. As she held up her hands, waving them around, a breeze – shaky, unstable, untrained, but _wind_ – held the doll in the air, throwing it around in an unrefined version of what he just had done. Of what he had learnt as a child in the Southern Air Temple. After a few seconds, the doll fell to the ground, and Jia looked annoyed by this.

But all Aang could do was stare in shock. “That was- That was _airbending_.”

“Hm?” Liwei turned toward them, having been picking up toys lying everywhere. “What?”

“She _airbended_.” He stared at the child, who stared back, confusion and the smallest glimmer of hope battling inside of him. “But that’s impossible.” He was the only airbender left. His people had been hunted into extinction.

The word hung in the air in the now silent house, interrupted only by the soft noise of the fire. _Airbending_.

The one who broke the silence was the elderly woman. “I always wondered…”

Fast as the wind itself, he was on his feet and by her side. His heart still, for a moment, before it started pounding. “Wondered what? How did she do that?”

The woman smiled softly. “I was born in Omashu five months after Fire Lord Sozin’s attack on the air temples. When I was five, I could run faster than any other child in the city. And a year later, my mother moved us to this house. She said Omashu was no longer safe. I never knew who my father was.”

“You mean…” The realization slowly dawned on him, and his heart skipped a beat. Was it _possible_ … “You think you’re an air nomad?”

“I am a citizen of the Earth Kingdom, Avatar,” she replied. For a moment, the embers of hope growing within him almost were snuffed out, but then, “But I always knew I was never like the others.”

Giggles had erupted by the fireplace again, and when he looked, he saw Jia keeping the doll in the air once again, a few seconds longer this time. The old lady’s word echoed in his head. _Five months after the air nomad genocide_. That made sense, he realized. How had he never realized… there were children. Babies. Even if the children in the temples had been killed, there had been non-bender air nomad children. There had been babies, not yet given over to the monks. Pregnant people. Parents who would have hid their young before walking into Sozin’s traps trying to rescue holy objects or people they knew.

The evidence was right in front of him.

Tears sprung up in his eyes, a grin splitting his face. The old lady gasped in surprise as he hugged her tight, before she slowly hugged him back.

Only one thought filled him now:

_He wasn’t alone_.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first, and probably my last, ATLA-fic, because I just got an idea and needed to get it out. Because I refuse to believe there were NO survivors of the air nomad genocide, particularly considering the air nomads were _nomads_ and most of them didn't actually live in the temples, to my knowledge
> 
> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed!


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